Medical School Entry Tests: UKCAT and BMAT

Many medical schools require applicants to sit the UKCAT or BMAT as part of their selection procedures. Familiarity with the kind of questions you’ll face in these tests is crucial to scoring well.

The good news is that you can prepare for the assessments by analysing the tests, and revising questions and answers to increase your chances of a successful outcome. Visit Get into Medical School for find out more about UKCAT and BMAT courses.

Here are a few tips to keep focused and to reduce error rate on test day:

Don’t be intimidated by presentations on topics you know nothing about. The testers are looking at how well you can manipulate numerical information, not whether you’re familiar with the topic of the presentation.

Don’t overcomplicate the questions. They require the use of fairly basic mathematical operations. If you have to draw on advanced mathematics in your attempts to solve the problem, you’re almost certainly going down the wrong path.

Read each question carefully and work steadily to avoid making careless errors. You can easily misinterpret or overlook a vital aspect of the question.

Don’t relax too much. This can lead to careless errors in a subtest on which you would otherwise have scored very highly.

Don’t spend too much time on a question you can’t solve. Move on to the next question and keep your cool. You aren’t expected to get 100%, so best accept that and use your time to your best advantage.